Viviane Reding and EU Justice

Justice and Home Affairs affect citizens and businesses more directly than most EU policies, and there is a whole lot going on.

The Lisbon Treaty entered into force a year ago, and the area of freedom, security and justice (AFSJ) now resembles 'normal' policies and internal actions of the European Union more than before.

The previous blog post looked briefly at Cecilia Malmström and EU Home Affairs, so now we take a peek at Viviane Reding and EU Justice.


EU Justice

Viviane Reding is vice-president of the European Commission and responsible for justice, fundamental rights and citizenship. Her Commission website is actively updated.

It took about six months, but then the Commission got separate Directorates-General for Home Affairs and Justice, both from 1 July 2010. However, they still seem to share the same culture. When I checked the Documentation centre and the Newsroom of DG Justice, they looked as lethargic as the corresponding web pages of their erstwhile fellow workers.

I wonder why.


JHA Council

Justice and Home Affairs (JHA) share the same Council configuration. The conclusions from the last meeting of this Council configuration during the Belgian presidency run to 37 pages, which gives us an indication of highly active policy areas:

Press release: 3051st Council meeting (Justice and Home Affairs), 2-3 December 2010 (provisional version; document 16918/10)

As with home affairs, there is a need for critical but constructive reporting and discussion about EU justice, fundamental rights and citizenship issues.


Citizenship report

I have been following EU citizenship issues on my blogs, so we might as well quote the Council conclusions with regard to the report from the Commission COM(2010) 603:

2010 EU citizenship report

The Council took note of the Commission's 2010 EU citizenship report: Dismantling the obstacles to EU citizens' rights (15936/10). The report analysis the areas where citizens are facing obstacles in the exercise of their rights and proposes 25 initiatives for tackling these obstacles.

You can find the initiatives in the blog post 'EU citizenship: 25 proposals' as well.



Ralf Grahn



P.S. 'The Blog with the European perspective' is how the team blog Kosmopolito describes itself; now closely following Wikileaks / Cablegate.

EU citizens and European law – Introduction by Alain Lamassoure MEP

One of the better moves of the French president Nicolas Sarkozy ahead of France’s presidency of the Council of the European Union was to ask Alain Lamassoure MEP to make some practical proposals for improving the effective application of Community law for ordinary people.

The report is dated 8 June 2008, and Lamassoure handed it over to Sarkozy 27 June 2008, just a few days before the beginning of the six month French Council presidency.

The English web page of the European Commission’s Directorate-General Justice recently linked only to the French original, so I decided to look for other language versions in order to make the report accessible to a greater number of people.

Despite time wasted on some inconclusive searches, we only have to go Lamassoure’s own web page to find the report in French, German and English. If there are translations into other languages, someone could be kind enough to indicate where they can be found. However, here are the direct links to the three language versions:

Alain LAMASSOURE, Député européen: LE CITOYEN ET L’APPLICATION DU DROIT COMMUNAUTAIRE Rapport au Président de la République (8 juin 2008 ; 188 pages)

Alain LAMASSOURE, Mitglied des Europäischen Parlaments: DER BÜRGER UND DIE ANWENDUNG DES GEMEINSCHAFTSRECHTS Bericht an den Staatspräsidenten( 8. Juni 2008)

Alain LAMASSOURE, Member of the European Parliament: THE CITIZEN AND THE APPLICATION OF COMMUNITY LAW Report to the President of the Republic (8th June 2008)


EU citizen and application of EU law

The Lisbon Treaty is in force since 1 December 2009, so I am going to use the expression ‘EU law’ instead of the now outdated ‘Community law’, if possible. I will use the English language version of the report, since it is convenient for the Grahnlaw blog and a majority of its readers.

In the introduction to his mission, Lamassoure referred to what he called an ‘undulating legal landscape on the continental scale’. While sedentary people may be little aware of this, the nomads in our society – i.e. those businesses and people whose living space goes beyond their national borders – are the first to suffer from it, said Lamassoure (page 4).

The main aim of the report was to make sure that EU law benefits European citizens as our legislators intend it (page 5).


Citizens’ rights in a nutshell

On page 8 Lamassoure reminds us of the main Treaty provisions from the Treaty of Rome to the newly signed Treaty of Lisbon, which lay the foundation for the rights of EU citizens, at least in principle:

“Within the scope of application of the Treaties, and without prejudice to any special provisions contained therein, any discrimination on grounds of nationality shall be prohibited.”

“Citizenship of the Union is hereby established. Every person holding the nationality of a Member State shall be a citizen of the Union. Citizenship of the Union shall complement and not replace national citizenship.”

“Every citizen of the Union shall have the right to move and reside freely within the territory of the Member States.”

“The Union shall offer its citizens an area of freedom, security and justice without internal frontiers, in which the free movement of persons is ensured.”

“Every citizen shall have the right to participate in the democratic life of the Union. Decisions shall be taken as openly and as closely as possible to the citizen.”

In real life

From the noble principles Lamassoure proceeds to a more problematic reality, describing the low level of workers’ mobility, the lack of data about and political interest in cross-border marriages, fragmented consumer markets (including online shopping) despite the common currency, and the low level of knowledge about European Union citizenship and the rights that go with it (page 8-11).

Lamassoure compares the current exercise of electoral and civil rights with the absence of a real common market for goods before the Single European Act in 1985 (page 11-12).

Basis and overview

Lamassoure correctly points out that simplification measures have started with businesses before individual citizens. His report is not the first attempt to improve the human side of the European Union, but his overview across different sectors is a good starting point when we begin to look more closely at issues concerning EU citizens in cross-border situations and in different roles, as voters, consumers, workers, mobile persons, in family relationships etc.




Ralf Grahn



P.S. According to the Atlantic Initiative association, at Atlantic-Community.org, today's transatlantic agenda is global: from climate change to failed states, from terrorism to the financial crisis, Europe and America must develop common policy to face new global challenges. Worth remembering and following ahead of the EU-US summit in Lisbon 20 November 2010.

Know your rights as an EU citizen

Are you moving within the European Union? Are you looking for work in another EU country, or are you setting up shop? Is your employer turning you into an expat? Do you want to spend retirement in another EU member state? Are there family reasons for relocating? Do you want to bring your non-EU family members into the European Union?

There are different reasons for relocating, but you should know your rights as an EU citizen. The European Commission now offers you the means to sort out the basics, before you meet public officials or turn to outside experts for advice.

At the European Commission’s DG Justice, vice-president Viviane Reding published a number of new documents concerning EU citizenship this week. (As a consequence, the informational quality of the DG Justice web pages is starting to improve, although many of them still resemble archives more than communication in real time.)

One of the positive actions was a new brochure for EU citizens, published as a high and a low resolution version in 22 languages. The freedom to move and to reside in the European Union is relevant for mobile citizens of the European Union, who plan to move to another EU country or already live outside their country of origin. It also concerns their non-EU family members:

Freedom to move and live in Europe - A Guide to your rights as an EU citizen (40 pages)

The thirteen chapter headings give you an idea of what you can expect to find basic guidance on:

Chapter 1 What is EU citizenship?
Chapter 2 Who can benefit?
Chapter 3 Where can you exercise this right?
Chapter 4 Preparing to move
Schengen rules
Chapter 5 The first three months
Reporting your presence
Chapter 6 After three months
Chapter 7 Administrative formalities
EU citizens
Non-EU family members
Sanctions
Chapter 8 Keeping the right to reside
Family members
Chapter 9 Right of permanent residence
Administrative requirements
Chapter 10 Equal treatment
Chapter 11 Restrictions
Chapter 12 Transitional arrangements for workers
Chapter 13 How to protect your rights

Besides the Treaty provisions on EU citizenship, the so called Citizenship Directive 2004/38 on the right of citizens of the Union and their family members to move and reside freely within the territory of the Member States is important for you and 11 million other mobile union citizens.




Ralf Grahn



P.S. Perhaps you should stay on top of what is happening in the European Union. Nowadays online communication offers you unprecedented ease of access to mainstream media and social media in Europe. Multilingual Bloggingportal.eu aggregates the posts from 686 blogs related to the European Union and the Council of Europe. These Euroblogs keep you up to date and they give you the opportunity to hone your language skills.

Improve information about EU citizens’ rights!

Ensuring correct implementation of the Citizens Directive 2004/38 by all EU member states has proven to be a tough task for the European Commission (brief background history in Swedish).



The Directive 2004/38 on the right of citizens of the Union and their family members to move and reside freely within the territory of the Member States is mentioned only once in the twelve pages of the Commission’s 27th annual report on monitoring the application of EU law (2009); Brussels, 1.10.2010 COM(2010) 538 final:

Following the Metock judgment [C-127/08], guidelines were discussed in the expert group on the application of Directive 2004/38 before the launch of a programme of bilateral meetings with all Member States on the transposition of EU rules on free movement of citizens and their family members.

Commission staff documents missing



We saw that the monitoring report from the Commission was accompanied by two SEC documents. However, if you search for SEC(2010) 1143 or 1144 under SEC documents on Eur-Lex, you get the less than helpful reply ‘Not available in English’.

I wonder: Why has the Commission posted only the brief overview, but omitted the ‘beef’, which is contained in the detailed annexes?



EP Legislative observatory Oeil



Even the Legislative observatory Oeil of the European Parliament does not list the accompanying documents with the report from the Commission COM(2010) 538 in the customary manner, but if we are resilient enough to search for the annexes separately we actually find what we are looking for.

Searching should be easier.



Sector by sector analysis


We find a hefty 512 page document with more detailed analysis sector by sector, a treasure trove for researchers and lawyers:




Commission staff working document: Situation in the different sectors; Brussels, 1.10.2010 SEC(2010) 1143 final; 512 pages.

There are numerous references to the sad state of implementation of Directive 2004/38. I am going to quote just two examples.

The first one is in section 3.1.1.2. Report on progress made in 2009 regarding free movement of workers (on page 62):

The Commission services have received many queries and complaints concerning the residence rights of migrant workers in the host Member State. It is still partly due to the fact that in May 2006, Directive 2004/38/EC effectively entered into force and introduced new residence formalities and some important new rights (such as the right of permanent residence). With a view to ensuring the respect of the provisions of Directive 2004/38/EC, the Commission services have been organising bilateral contacts with Member States to make sure that the Directive is correctly transposed and applied across the EU.

My second example is in the section 14.6. Free movement of persons (from page 439, the quote from the following page), where the Commission indicates the state of free movement of persons:

In 2009, the Commission continued to deal with a large number of enquiries and complaints in the area of free movement of persons – 1000 were replied in 2009 compared with 1070 in 2008. Complaints management was also a significant part of ensuring full and proper implementation of Directive 2004/38/EC. In 2009, 205 complaints were registered with the Secretariat-General (compared with 81 registered in 2008).

There were 37 written EP questions and 36 petitions in the area of free movement of persons in 2009.

Statistical annex

The other accompanying document is (part of?) a statistical annex, with 118 pages of detailed information about procedures:



Commission staff working document: Statistical annex - Annexes I to III (Volume 1); Brussels, 1.10.2010 SEC(2010) 1144 final



Comments

The Commission and the European Parliament should do more to inform about problems concerning the implementation of EU law, and to foster debate on these issues. This includes the enforcement of the rights of EU citizens and their families to free movement and residence.

I hope that the European Parliament takes a close look at citizens’ rights when it starts to evaluate the report on the application of EU law in 2009.

In mid October 2010 we are still looking at a report regarding 2009, however forward-looking the Commission has tried to make it.

There is a need for more timely information. The Commission has an opportunity to show its dedication to citizens’ rights, including Directive 2004/38, when it communicates its actions with regard to Paris and the other capitals.



The new Directorate-General Justice has formally updated its web pages, but the newsroom and the other pages are still more burdened by history than filled with complete and updated information. You have to go to the pages of justice commissioner Viviane Reding, which are more up to date (see News, Press releases and Speeches), but there are still many cracks between the floor boards.




Ralf Grahn



P.S. Nowadays it is increasingly hard to find European enterprises, public authorities or interest groups without an active social media presence, or a stake in European Union affairs. Politics, policies, economics and law at a EU level are becoming more important in a globalising world, at least if Europeans still want to weigh in.

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